Text content (OCR)
Open-Apple —
Releasing the power to everyone.
September 1988
Vol. 4, No. 8
ISSN 0885-4017
newstand price: $2.50
photocopy charge per page: $0.15
Apple after bugs
Apple wants to get the bugs out of its hardware, development
tools, and dealers. Reports of hardware and development tool bugs
should include a brief summary of the bug in one or two sentences, a
step-by-step description of how to replicate the bug, and the version
numbers of the hardware and software used. If the problem is with a
development product, provide program listings or program input and
output if that would be helpful. If you are able to offer a possible solu-
tion to the problem, do so. Send the bug report to:
Apple Technical Support
Apple Computer, Inc.
20525 Mariani Ave, M/S 51-7
Cupertino, CA 95014
Attn: Bug Reporting
Here's Apple's official policy regarding end-user technical assis-
tance:
Apple handles technical support and service through our net-
work of authorized AppleDealers (TM) (sic). To ensure that you
receive a quick and thorough response to your technical or service
related questions, Apple has provided our dealers with AppleLink
(R), an on-line information service that contains databases of tech-
nical and service information. If the answer to your inquiry is not
found on AppleLink, dealers can forward your request to the Apple
Technical Support Engineers by electronic mail or by telephone.
You should receive an answer within two to three working days.
If your dealer is unsuccessful in obtaining answers to your ques-
tions, Apple's Customer Relations Department wants to know about it.
They would like the following—the name, address, and telephone
number of the dealer to whom you directed your inquiry, name of the
sales or service person with whom you spoke, the configuration of
Apple equipment and software you are using, and a brief summary of
your inquiry. Send your report to:
Customer Relations
Apple Computer, Inc.
20525 Mariani Ave, M/S 37-3
Cupertino, CA 95014
Attn: Dealer Evaluations
In either case, we'd like to see a carbon copy of your report here at
Open-Apple.
Claris has released a free update to AppleWorks. It's not an
upgrade, mind you, just an update. It's called AppleWorks 2.1. The
update allows an automatic 8-megabyte desktop on a Ilgs with
enough RAM installed, 138 files per subdirectory, intelligent recalcula-
tion in the spreadsheet, a IIgs desk-accessory bug fix, a disk-is-full-
delete-this-file bug fix, the ability to enter control-@ in printer codes, a
page number bug fix, a IIgs printer buffer bug fix, and 64-character
pathnames.
Version 2.1 is free to all AppleWorks 2.0 owners, but only until
September 30. If you have registered with Claris as an AppleWorks
user (registrations with Apple don't count) you should already have
received a new disk. If you haven't yet registered, send your original
AppleWorks Startup/Program disk to Claris. Send either the 3.5 disk
or the 5.25 disk. Claris will send you the new version of the program
on the same size disk. There is no new documentation for version
2.1, Mail your disk to:
AppleWorks Update
Claris Corporation
440 Clyde ave
Mountain View, CA 94043
According to the National AppleWorks User Group, you need the
following updates for AppleWorks-related software:
Applied Engineering—AW 2 Expander version 3.0 or later.
Updates free from most Applied Engineering dealers or $15 plus ship-
ping directly from Applied Engineering.
Beagle Bros—You need version 2.0 of the TimeOut utility itself
(version number appears when you start AppleWorks). Once you have
that, all versions of SuperFonts, QuickSpell, Thesaurus, PowerPack,
and DeskTools II are compatible with AppleWorks 2.1. All other Time-
Out programs must be versions2.0 or higher. Beagle Bros has started
a ‘Beagle Buddy’ program whereby a designated member of your local
user group can provide you with the necessary updates. To order
updates directly from Beagle Bros, send in your original disks, $10,
and $2.50 more per disk ($12.50 for one disk, $15 for two disks,
etc.).
Checkmate Technology—you must have version 5.2 or later of
the MultiRam software disk to use AppleWorks 2.1. Updates are $13
from Checkmate Technology.
JEM Software—AppleWorks 2.1 requires versions 2.0 of PatchMa-
nia, Late Nite Patches, and PathFinder. Send your original disk and $5
per disk to JEM for an update.
Pinpoint—Pinpoint says all of its AppleWorks 2.0-compatible prod-
ucts are also compatible with AppleWorks 2.1
Virus news. The author of CyberAIDS has issued an update to his
program called Festering Hate. Files infected with this virus have been
uploaded to a number of bulletin boards, but the speed at which they
are discovered is remarkable. We have far more reports of virus spot-
“TD LIKE TO THANK EVERYONE FOR RECOGNIZING MY
COMPANY AS THE LEADER IN COPY-PROTECTED SOFTWARE.”
4.58 Open-Apple
tings than we have of disks actually being erased by the virus.
I placed a public domain program called VIRUS.SCANNER on
GEnie. It's too long to publish here, but it's probably available for
downloading most anywhere by now. It scans all the subdirectories on
a disk looking for SYS files, then checks the ones it finds for
CyberAIDS or Festering Hate infections. If it finds an infected file, it
gives you the option to delete it.
There are a number of other programs available for dealing with
viruses. Some are general programs that look for unexpected changes
on a disk, others, like VIRUS.SCANNER, look specifically for
CyberAIDS and Festering Hate. Use the search string "virus" to get a
list of the ones we have available on GEnie.
Vol. 4, No. 8
Most of the damage the viruses have done so far has been to the
reputation and income of shareware authors whose files have been
uploaded after infection. Much of the virus advice on local bulletin
boards is to avoid specific programs. This is stupid advice. Any SYS
file can be infected. If you obtain SYS files from bulletin boards that
check for viruses, as all of the national boards do, you don't need to
avoid any specific program.
Apple is aware of the virus attack and has obtained a good deal of
information about the source of the virus. As we went to press,
Apple's lawyers were deciding whether to pursue the case in civil
court or to turn their findings over to the FBI for criminal prosecution.
Pascal, CP/M & Publish It!
In response to "Speaking in tongues’ in your
August issue (page 4.54), you can't go wrong
buying Apple Pascal 1.5. The package includes
not only a standard (UCSD) Pascal compiler that
works especially well with 128K machines, pro-
viding a huge work space for programs, vari-
ables, and assembly-language procedures and
functions, but also a full screen editor, a fullfea-
tured 6502 (not 65C02) macro assembler, and
complete documentation for the whole system.
At $75, Apple Pascal 1.3 is a steal.
One special feature of the system is the inter:
face between Pascal and assembly language. An
excellent book to use with this system is Apple
Pascal, a Hands-On Approach, by Luehrmann
and Peckham. (However, the book is geared to
a one-drive Apple I-Plus—use the boot-up direc-
tions in the Apple Pascal documentation, not
those in the book.)
And in response to “Cheap languages’ in the
same issue (page 4.55), Paris's recommenda-
tions about CP/M are right on target. A good
source of CP/M programs is Spite Software,
4004 S.W. Barbur Blvd., Portland, OR 97201
503-228-8223 or 800-237-9111. There are
many sources of CP/M public domain software,
but much of it is useless stuff. One excellent
program, however, is NSWEEP, a file-manage-
ment utility.
The new standard in word processing is the
new the CP/M version of WordStar 4. It is a
quantum improvement over my near five-year-
old version of WordStar 3.5 in terms of flexibili-
ty and power. It comes with a spelling checker,
has built-in macros, and a simple calculator.
Finally, my own comment—I predict that
Timeworks Publish It! will have as big an
impact on the 8-bit Apple world as AppleWorks.
Keith J. Bernstein
Ramsey, N.J.
Apple Pascal has been quite popular with
commercial developers. Bill Basham even
wrote his DOS 3.3 speed-up program, Diversi-
DOS, with the system's assembler. People who
have used UCSD Pascal on other machines find
it very friendly. | find the fact that it uses its
own operating system rather than ProDOS a
significant limitation, however.
Another good source of CP/M software is
Central Computer Products, 350 Central Ave,
Fillmore, CA 95015 805-524-4189. Ask for
their catalog, CP/M Times.
The only serious complaint we've heard
about Publish It! is that it doesn't expand its
desktop into standard memory cards. Docu-
ment size is limited to what you can fit into
128K. Otherwise, it still looks like the Apple II
desktop publishing program that others,
including llgs others, have to beat.
IIgs modem cables, cont.
| purchased what | suspect is the same DAK
modem as Lee Bonnett (June 1988, page 4.39).
To make a long story short, a Super Serial Card
to ImageWriter Il cable has the right connectors
on the ends, but I couldn't get it to work until |
added a $9.95 null modem adapter from Radio
Shack. At that point the IIgs and the modem
began a happy relationship, which continues at
the time of this writing,
Wm. Beasley
North Olmsted, Ohio
Unfortunately, any time a cable has a 25-pin
RS-252 connector at one or both ends, it can
be either a ‘modem’ cable or a ‘printer’ cable.
To keep the enemy confused, ‘printer’ cables
are also called ‘null modem" cables. A ‘null
modem adapter’ changes a cable from one
type to the other.
In your case, you added a null modem
adapter to a null modem (printer) cable and
came up with a modem cable. Thankfully,
Apple's new cables with Mini-DIN 8 connectors
at both ends do away with all this garbage—a
cable is just a cable.
Fastdata Pro revisited
Just when | thought you were infallible, you
goofed. Your May issue indicated that ProSEL is
as good as Fastdata Pro. Now | love ProSEL and
use it frequently, but Fastdata Pro is light-years
better as a search program. It even runs circles
around Documax, which was inCider's ‘Editor's
Choice’ in January, 1987.
Fastdata Pro perfectly combines logical oper-
ators, a changeable end-of-record character, and
the ability to link files and disks. | find things in
my AppleWorks and Profiler databases much
faster than with any other program because
Fastdata searches for multiple strings simultane-
ously. It's like parallel processing. Once you see
its power you won't want to return to sequential
processing, There's nothing else like it.
John C. Dempsey
Houston, Texas
When | bought my tlgs, | kept the old I-Plus
and dedicated it to Fastdata Pro. | am cataloging
every last book, record, and scrap of paper |
own. They all go into files | call ‘shoeboxes’.
Everything is accessible to high-speed retrieval.
Dr. Robert Griswold
Stockton, Calif.
Being mentioned along with ProSEL is truly
an honor, but I think you missed the mait
ture of FASTDATA Pro. You compare its al Ss
to those of a word processor's ‘search’ com-
mand, but what makes FASTDATA Pro special is
the ability to use AND/OR/NOT logic in search-
es. It's more like a database manager than a
word processor. Using the OR operator, you can
search for many different things simultaneously.
The feature that makes FASTDATA Pro truly
unique is our variable delimiter. We know of no
other product, not even those for MS-DOS, that
let you change the domain of the search as our
product does. For example, if you set the block
delimiter to a carriage return, the domain is a
paragraph. Change it to a period, and the
domain is a sentence. Our manual shows how
to define the domain to be a line, paragraph,
category, record, chapter, section, or even a
whole file. Because of this feature, we can
search commercial databases that no other
Apple Il program will search, for example, BIO-
SIS BIOMEDICAL databases and LINC Resources
SpecialWare for handicapped children.
Most of our customers have both FASTDATA
Pro and ProSEL and swear by each of them.
Jim Hammond
FASTFIND Co.
Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif.
Orange Micro's support
I have an ImageWriter Il with a 64K Orange
Micro ImageBuffer installed, Recently | attempt-
ed to print a large AppleWorks database report.
The report skipped from page three to page
seven leaving out all the data in between. When
| disabled the ImageBuffer with DIP switch set-
tings, the report printed just fine, albeit tying up
my computer for awhile in the printing process.
The most disturbing aspect of all this is the
way Orange Micro has failed to respond to my
telephone calls and letters requesting some
feedback regarding the problem. Since the
buffers built-in self-test doesn't signal a prob-
lem, I'm uncertain if | have a defective buffer or
if I've discovered a bug in the design. Orange
Micro's customer support is apparently nil.
Prospective users of their products should real-
ize that.
Mark Frank
Staten Island, N.Y.
September 1988
Correcting bad behavior
| have an ill-behaved word processor (Guten-
berg) that leaves my printer and interface card
in an unusual state when I exit from the pro-
gram. When | subsequently run AppleWorks, |
cannot print a file properly. Turning the printer
off and back on solves some of the problems,
but not all of them.
It is also necessary to either turn the comput-
er off and reboot or to do a control-reset, nei-
ther of which is very convenient. Can you tell
me what control or escape characters to send
to my ImageWriter Il and my Apple Super Serial
Card to return them to their default settings?
Such information should be useful to other
readers with software that does not exit cleanly.
Leo C. Curran
Snyder, N.Y.
“Escape c’ (lower case ‘c') will reset the
ImageWriter II to its defaults. We've added this
to our own AppleWorks interface card initializa-
tion strings—when you have Apple Ils and Mac-
intoshes sharing an ImageWriter on an
AppleTalk network, the Macs leave the
ImageWriter in a messed up state.
The Super Serial Card, unfortunately, is not
so easy to deal with. As described here last
November (page 3.76), the Super Serial Card's
reset command is as ill-behaved as a Macin-
tosh. The IIc and Ilgs serial ports automatically
reset themselves every time they are initial-
ized, but the Super Serial Card resets itself
only after power on, control-reset (so far, just
as you've described) or the ‘control-I R’ com-
mand.
But if you add ‘controll R‘ to the Apple-
Works interface card string, AppleWorks will
crash every time you try to print something.
This is because the Super Serial Card ‘R’ com-
mand tries to disconnect the printer in an old-
fashioned way that just doesn't work with 80-
column text screens.
This leaves us with no elegant way to return
the Super Serial Card to its default settings.
You could send the publishers of Gutenberg a
copy of our page 3.76 with the suggestion that
they use the program given there to clean up
after themselves on exit (don't forget to pay
your photocopy fee, hehe) or you can use
brute force by POKEing a zero at SLOT*I6 +
49290 ($CO8A).
Create yourself a little Applesoft program
that does this and then runs AppleWorks like
this:
10 sLot=1
20 IF PEEK ((SLOT#256) + 49169) <> 133 THEN 40
30 POKE (SLOT*16) +49290,0
40 PRINT CHRS (4) ; “-APLHORKS, SYSTEM"
Line 20 makes a simple check to be sure
the specified slot holds a Super Serial Card.
Thanks to subscriber Yvan Koenig for this
forceful idea. The first time you use the Super
Serial Card after running this program, it will
reset itself to its default (dipswitch) settings.
Chronic printer problems
1 would like to hear some definitive and
effective advice on how to gain control over two
chronic and minor problems with my ImageWrit-
er Il, apparently commonly experienced. First, it
always dumps an unwanted character at the left
margin of the first line after power up. Second-
ly, it often does a vertical scrunching of lines,
most noticeable on the first line of a page, but
also sometimes occurring in the middle of a
page.
Robert R. Eddy
Concord, N.H.
We suspect the unwanted character is gener-
ated by your computer when you turn it on.
Something causes a character to be generated
randomly at the interface and sent to the print-
er, which buffers it until you send the first line.
One solution is to turn your computer on first,
then the printer. Another solution is to add the
ImageWriter reset code to your interface card
command string, as described in the first para-
graph of the answer to the previous letter.
The line scrunching problem doesn't seem
to have a definitive solution, but take a look at
‘Database bug, first line squashed’ in our
March issue (page 4.16); ‘And the magic solu-
tion is..." in April (page 4.20); and ‘Magic solu-
tion, continued’ in May (page 4.31).
Printing downhill
I have been having trouble with Apple Writ-
er. It prints downhill when underlining a double-
strike or emphasized letter. | found your article
of July 1986, page 2.48, advising of an update
by Apple for people using third-party interface
cards, | called the Apple dealer who sold me my
lle, Apricorn interface, and Epson FX and was
given a phone number at Apple to call. The
engineer | talked to said this service has not
been available since 1986.
Any idea how | can get the update? | still like
the simplicity of Apple Writer but underlining
and letter-quality do get used together at our
home. | have had as many as four college stu-
dents in the family, as well as two girl friends, a
neighbor, and numerous other drop-ins make
appointments to use this set up. Apple Writer is
easy for all newcomers to use and keeps ques-
tions at a minimum (they like to work after mid-
night).
Clio McGuen
San Diego, Calif.
The downhill printing you describe sounds
like a printer problem, not an Apple Writer
problem. How long has it been since your old
FX was cleaned and oiled? (No telling how
much after-midnight peanut butter is sticking
to the gears.)
To accomplish the Apple Writer 2.1
upgrade, dealers received a disk called the
Apple Writer 2.1 Revision Utility. You had to
take your original Apple Writer disk to the
dealer and they would run the revision utility. It
would ask for your copy and patch it. You
might try calling around—there may be another
dealer in your area who hasn't misplaced the
disk.
‘Apple has a nasty habit of just abandoning
its copyrighted software. This makes things dif-
ficult for its customers—you can't buy an origi-
nal and you can't make a duplicate. There is,
however, a concept in copyright law called ‘fair
use’. | suspect that most juries would hold that
obtaining an ‘illegal’ upgrade for an abandoned
program would, in fact, be ‘legal" under the fair
use clause. So, if you can find someone who
has a copy, go for it.
One other possibility is to call back Apple's
engineer and request that he or she log on to
AppleLink and search Apple's ‘Technical Info"
library for documents that include the word
*005-3071-B’. That's the ‘part number’ given
for Apple Writer 2.1 on a document called
‘Apple Il Software Distributed by Apple as of
Open-Apple 4.59
August I, 1988." This may mean that your
dealer can order a replacement disk for you,
but I'm not sure. Maybe the engineer will know.
Maybe one of our subscribers will.
Printer Tech
| would like to ask your help with an unex-
pected problem | encountered while developing
a super-simple, inexpensive (parts cost under
$10) scanning device for the Apple II. I need
some kind of mechanical device | can attach
my scanner to that will move left to right and
from top to bottom over a sheet of paper.
Sounds like a printer, right? But how can I get
one of my printers (ImageWriter Il and Epson FX
800) to move the printhead, wait till that point
is scanned, move to the next point, wait, move,
and so on.
The problem is the ‘intelligence’ of the print-
ers. They use their built-in buffers to collect a
full line of data. The printhead doesn't start to
move until a carriage return is received. Then
the printhead rapidly moves across that entire
line—too fast for my scanning device to see
anything. How, oh how, can | circumvent the
printer buffer or can | make the printer dumb
again?
Next, let me respond to David Smith's criti-
cisms of Beagle Bros’ SuperFonts (April, page
4,22), Using Print Shop graphics is possible by
converting them to normal graphics. On one of
the Beagle MiniPix disks you will find a program
to do this for you. As for the look of the output,
in my opinion SuperFonts does a terrific job,
worth waiting for. Most of the time I use
Times.12 and it looks simply fine—we use the
expression Near Laser Quality for this kind of
printing. Many people won't believe it was done
with an Apple Il and AppleWorks. | love Super-
Fonts, for me it's the best of the TimeOut series
(although QuickSpell is used with quite the
same pleasure. For guys like me it's trouble
enough to put the things you want to say down
in reasonable English. Although the sequence
of words might be weird still, | know at least
they are spelled right. | do hope Beagle Bros will
come up with dictionaries in other languages,
including Dutch, if possible.)
Do you get technical notes on paper from
Apple or do you dig them out of bulletin
boards? I'd sure like to have those notes also.
John Tegelaar
Nieuwkoop, The Netherlands
Both Dennis and I have pondered the printer
stepping problem for some time because it
sure seems like there should be a way to do it,
but we can't figure it out. Does anyone else
know?
You can get a subscription to Apple's Tech-
nical Notes through the Apple Programmers
and Developers Association (290 SW 43rd St,
Renton, WA 98055 206-251-6548). One-year's
worth is $25 plus shipping. Apple has also
issued licenses to the major online services so
that we can post technical notes, too.
UniDisk Tech
Where can | get technical information about
the UniDisk 3.5? I'm interested in the com-
mands you can send to the controller, informa-
tion about the 6502 inside the UniDisk, and so
on.
Thomas Wieland
Pierrefonds, Quebec
4.60 Open-Apple
The only technical information on the Uni-
Disk we've seen has been in Apple's technical
notes, mentioned in the last letter. Five Uni-
Disk tech notes have been published. The two
you'd be most interested in were last revised in
July 1985, so order the 1985 tech notes.
Top/bottom margin migraines
No matter what Bottom Margin | specify
under printer options, | can't get less than two
inches on the first page (only the first) of a mul-
tiple-page document when using double-spac-
ing. The only way | can get the type down to
within an inch of the bottom edge is to change
the Paper Length, but that messes up subse-
quent pages.
JA. Butler
Inwood, West Va.
An associate using the AppleWorks word pro-
cessor wanted a 2-inch margin at the top of the
first page of a three-page document, but only a
l-inch top margin on the next two pages. No
matter where she tried to insert a new Top Mar-
gin command, the pagination was disrupted
from that page on.
| thought she was issuing the command too
late in the document. Half an hour and many,
many sheets of paper later we were no closer to
a solution. So | switched to the wonderful Page
Preview desk tool from the TimeOut series to
save further excessive demands on our arboreal
population and discovered the following misfea-
ture.
When you change the Top Margin, the new
Top Margin will take effect on the next page.
However, the new Top Margin also changes
Appleworks’ internal ‘number of lines to print
on this page" variable and this change takes
effect immediately! In our example, if you
decrease the top margin from 2 inches to |
inch, AppleWorks will put an extra inch of text
on the page in which the command falls. If your
bottom margin is small and the change in your
top margin is large, this will actually push the
text right onto the next sheet of paper.
If you increase the top margin, on the other
hand, the page on which the Top Margin com-
mand appears will be printed without enough
lines and the bottom margin will appear to be
much larger than you've specified.
Once | discovered the problem, the solution
was obvious: set the top margin to the smallest
value you will use in the document and create
additional margin artificially on the pages that
need it by inserting blank lines.
Bill Parlin
Schenectady, N.Y.
There's definitely a problem with the Apple-
Works Top Margin command. We can't find any-
thing specific wrong with Bottom Margin other
than the weird effects Top Margin has on it.
The best place to start a discussion of the
Top and Bottom Margin commands is by
reviewing the tools. Lots of beginners miss the
idea that Top and Bottom Margins can be
changed at any point within a document. In
order to support this feature, there has to be
some way for you to tell AppleWorks at exactly
what point you want the new margin (or line
spacing, or characters per inch, or etc) to start.
The ‘way’ is that AppleWorks embeds your
command just above the paragraph the cursor
was in when you pressed open-apple-
<O>ptions (or, for some commands, such as
underline and boldface, at the exact cursor
location).
It's important for beginning AppleWorks
users to learn they can see where commands
are embedded in a document with the open-
apple-<Z>oom command. <Z>oom toggles
back and forth between a screen display that
shows all the formatting commands embedded
in a document and a screen display that shows
the document as it will look when it is printed.
Many novices have trouble with things like dou-
ble-spacing because they decide to use it after
they finish typing—when the cursor is at the
end of the document. Then they print and can't
understand why AppleWorks didn't respond to
their double-spacing command.
If beginners learn to use <Z>oom to see
where in their document commands appear,
such misunderstandings will be considerably
rarer. Another helpful command when working
with Top and Bottom margins is open-apple-
<K>alculate. This command displays page
breaks on the screen.
Both the Top Margin and the Bottom Margin
options take effect as soon as AppleWorks
encounters them while printing a file. Our tests
show flawless operation of the Bottom Margin
command, as long as the command appears
‘high’ on a page. If it appears near the bottom,
inconsistent results can occur. If you change
from a | inch to a 3 inch bottom margin when
the printhead is 2 inches away from the bot-
tom of the paper, you'll get a 2 inch bottom
margin—the change will take effect immediate-
ly, but too late for 3 inches of white space.
Likewise, if a Top Margin command appears
on a page before any text, it will take effect on
that page. If it appears after any text, however,
it's too late for the actual white space at the
top of that page. Yet AppleWorks adjusts the
number of lines it intends to print on the cur-
rent page as soon as it encounters a Top Mar-
gin command. As Bill Parlin has pointed out,
this makes it impossible to use the Top Margin
command in the middle of a page.
Probably the most common kind of docu-
ment that needs variable top margins is one
that has a large top margin on the first page
and a smaller top margin on all other pages. If
you place the second Top Margin command on
the first page, extra lines of text (enough to
equal the difference between the large margin
and the small margin) will appear on that page.
Even if you use <K>alculate to determine
where the page break is and put the new Top
Margin command at the top of page 2, Apple-
Works will actually encounter it while still print-
ing page | and will say, ‘Hey, wait, he wants
more lines on this page,’ and ruin page 1.
Parlin's trick of padding a page with blank
lines works best when, as in this example, the
largest top margin is on the first page. Trying to
pad top margins on other pages is trickier,
because when a page begins with empty lines,
those lines are not sent to the printer (they do
appear on the screen after <K>alculate but
they are not included in the page-break calcu-
lation). One solution is to put a ‘sticky space”
(open-apple-space bar) on blank lines you don't
want removed. Another is to use the open-
apple-<O>ptions SKip lines command.
The best solution, however, is to realize that
because of the bug in the Top Margin com-
mand, the only place you can embed one with-
out foul consequences is at the beginning of a
document or immediately after a New Page
command. Thus, another solution to Parlin's
problem is to <K>alculate the page breaks of
the document, move the cursor to the first
Vol. 4, No. 8
‘page break’ line, and use open-apple-<-
O>ptions NP (new page). (If the page-break
occurs in the middle of a paragraph, first go to
the end of the last line on page | and hit
Return to create a paragraph break, else the
New Page command will jump up to the begin-
ning of the paragraph.) While you're at the
options screen you can also set the new top
margin. This seems to work reliably. (It's also a
good way to put in a Header that you dont
want on the first page.)
A better solution would be a more effective
Top Margin option. AppleWorks needs to some-
how remember that it encountered a Top Mar-
gin command, but not actually execute it until
the next page break.
@LOOKUP <L>ayout
Have you noticed that AppleWorks <L>ayout
command in the spreadsheet doesn't work on
empty cells if you choose the Row or Column
options? The Entry and Block options work just
fine on empty cells.
And starting with version 1.3, @LOOKUP
doesn't return correct results with column
tables, even though the manual says it works
with either row or column tables. It also returns
ERROR if you enter a value equal to or larger
than the last table entry, even though the manu-
al states it will return the value for the largest
value in the table if a value larger than the last
entry is used. This is how it works in versions
1.2 and 1.1. To get around this, you have to
enter a dummy value at the end of the table
that's larger than will ever be used.
Vincent D. O'Conner
Babbitt, Minn.
I've noticed many times that <L>ayouts
didnt stick to empty cells. Thanks for the tip
about choosing <L>ayout, <B>lock—you're
right, layouts do stick to empty cells when you
use that option. And, anyhow, it's no trick to
select a single Row or Column when using
Block.
<find> mouse Return
One of the neat patches that came with Bea-
gle Bros' Super MacroWorks allowed you to
change the AppleWorks word processor's Return
marker from a dull checkerboard to the Mouse-
Text broken-arrow Return symbol.
But then when you upgrade to UltraMacros
and try to use that program's new <find> macro
(solid-apple-return) for moving the cursor to the
next carriage return, it doesn't work. It can't find
the MouseText Return. Here's a patch Randy
Brandt himself sent me to fix UltraMacros so
that it can find a MouseText Return:
BLOAD ULTRA. SYSTEM, TSYS,A8192
POKE ((PEEK (8197) + 256 * PEEK(8198)) + 8195), 77
BSAVE ULTRA. SYSTEM, TSYS, 6192
Leh-Wen Yau
Riverside, Calif.
Now if Randy would just tell the rest of us
how to get AppleWorks to display the Mouse-
Text Return in the first place...
Gap corrective
When you load an ASCII text file into the
AppleWorks word processor, AppleWorks adds a
‘toothy’ appearance to all continuous lines
(lines without space characters) longer than 61
characters. It does this by inserting a space into
the line at the point at which the line is
‘wrapped’. The gap always appears at column
September 1988
61 because, when creating new files from ASCII
text files, the word processor defaults to 60-
character lines.
If you reformat the file for wider lines, the
gap will become apparent. Now you have to go
through the document and delete all the extra
space characters at column 61.
Here's a patch. It's not a perfect solution, but
it's worth using if you often load ASCII text files
into the AppleWorks word processor:
POKE 768,65 : REM original value is 61
BSAVE SEG.M1,T$00,A$300,L1,BS197A4
This disables the word-wrap feature while
text files are loaded. Unfortunately, this patch
causes other lines in the file to wrap incorrectly.
But this can be solved by simply going to the
beginning of the file and issuing a command
that causes reformatting (unjustify, left margin,
right margin, characters per inch....)
Back in June, at the top of page 4.38, you
show an UltraMacros macro. As shown it doesn't
compile properly. Comments need to be kept
inside curly brackets.
Oh, and speaking of viruses, you forgot to
mention the built-in ProDOS 16 virus, The FIND-
ER has a nasty habit of putting a FINDER.DATA
file in every directory you open using it and a
FINDER.ROOT file on every disk. Since | have a
lle but work with IIgs owners, I constantly find
myself deleting FINDER.DATA and FINDER.ROOT
files.
Mark Munz
Fort Lewis, Wash.
Since | load most of the files | download
from GEnie into AppleWorks to read them, I've
noticed the gap in long lines of *- -* many
times. I always thought it was GEnie that did
that, however, not AppleWorks, so I was glad
to see your patch.
I didn't mean for you to type in the macro's
comments, but your point is well taken.
If you don't like cleaning up Finder drop-
pings, see if you can get your ligs friends to
change Finder's preferences so that it doesn't
save FINDER.DATA and FINDER.ROOT files.
Slot 2 contention solved
I have found a patch for AppleWorks 2.0 that
solves the problem of not being able to print to
slot 2 when a disk drive appears to be in slot 2:
BLOAD APLRORKS SYSTEM, TSYS, A$2000
POKE 11349,76 : REM was 189
POKE 11350,97 : REM was 164
POKE 11351,28 : REM was 15
SAVE APLWORKS. SYSTEM, SYS, AS2000
Since | have a /ROMdisk (Checkmate Tech-
nology Memory Saver) and two 3.5 disks con-
nected to the SmartPort on my Ilgs, ProDOS
always assigns a disk to slot 2. The patch allows
AppleWorks to use my second printer, which
also appears in slot 2.
Carmela Anna Vitti
Santhia, Italy
AppleWorks on ROM
T have just put AppleWorks on a ROMdisk.
The boot time is fantastic, but the ROMdisk is
write-protected. Do you know of a patch for
AppleWorks that will allow a write-protected
boot disk?
David Ciotti
No, but somewhere out there is someone
who does,
A4 paper & AppleWorks
Standard office paper in much of the world is
"A4’ (297mm by 210 mm or 11.68 inches by
8.27 inches), which is somewhat longer and a
little narrower than international fan-fold. Apple-
Works allows only one decimal place for the
page length option, PL, accessed by open-apple-
<O>ptions. A setting of either 11.6 or 11.7 will
eventually lead to problems.
Here's the solution if you have an ImageWrit-
erll.
Set PL to 11.6 at the top of your document or
in the spreadsheet/database option settings.
In the printer specifications, set "Accepts top-
of-form’ to YES.
Add the following to your interface card
code: ‘ESCAPE H1684". Note that there is no
space between the H and 1684.
Dr. Philip Ryan
Fitzroy, South Australia
When you set ‘Accepts top-of-form’ to YES
you are telling AppleWorks to use ‘form feed"
(control-L) to tell the printer to advance to the
top of the next page. NO, on the other hand,
tells AppleWorks to use multiple linefeeds to
get to the top of the next page.
ESCAPE Hnnnn tells the ImageWriter II how
long the paper is, in increments of
nnnn/144ths of an inch. In combination with
form feed, this code allows the ImageWriter to
advance A4 paper exactly. Unfortunately, earli-
er Apple printers do not support the ESCAPE H
command.
Cosmetic patches
How do | change the AppleWorks database
report column underline character from a dash
to an equals sign:
COLUMN TITLE
COLUMN TITLE
How do | change the spreadsheet ‘column
too narrow’ character from a pound sign to a
greater-than sign:
SEE >od>>>>9999>
Bob Cerchio
Carbondale, Ill.
I like to hide constants, etc., by putting them
in an AppleWorks spreadsheet column with a
width of one character. This way, when the col-
umn is formatted as ‘fixed’ with a specification
of one place, | get a column of “# in reports.
But | would really like to replace the "#' charac-
ter with "|" (vertical bar) to match other column
borders.
Michael P. Stupinski
Using Basic.system 1.1 or 1.2 and an
unmodified backup copy of AppleWorks
2.0—to change the line under the column title
you have to make two changes, one for the
screen and one for printouts:
POKE 768,61
BSAVE SEG.M1,A$300,L1,$00,B§C52 (screen)
BSAVE SEG.M1,A$300,L1,7$00, B§2D8F (printout)
To change the column-too-narrow character:
POKE 768,62 (>) or POKE 768,124 (|)
BSAVE SEG.M1,A$300, L1, 7900, BSDAF9
VisiFile to AppleWorks
| was recently trying to convert some VisiFile
files to AppleWorks and no one | contacted,
including Claris, could help me. Browsing
through Open-Apple, | came across the letter
Open-Apple 4.61
from David Story on page 2.59 of my very first
issue (September 1986), which explains exactly
how to do it. It might be nice to repeat the tip in
1988 so that Claris, at least, might know about
it.
Dr. A.K. Solomon
Cambridge, Mass.
The problem is two-fold. First, AppleWorks
refuses to deal with DIF files that include
‘optional data’, as VisiFile-generated DIF files
do. Provisions for optional data are an integral
part of the DIF file standard—there’s no excuse
for Appleworks' refusal to read these files. 1
talked about this at length in August 1986,
page 2.56.
The second problem is that when loading
DIF files, AppleWorks should give you an
option of ‘row or column format’. As written,
the AppleWorks data base DIF file reader
insists that DIF files be saved in column for-
mat.
One way to solve both problems is to load
your VisiFile files into Advanced VisiCalc (or
any other program that properly handles DIF
files) and resave them in the row/column for-
mat you need. This will also delete the optional
data that AppleWorks turns its nose up at.
lle to llgs upgrade
I got the Ile to Ilgs upgrade and think it's
even better than buying a regular IIgs. However,
if you get the Ile to ligs upgrade and have an
‘old’ Ile (mine was January 1983 vintage, light
gray keys, white key letters), you have to pur-
chase a new case for the upgrade (about $55).
According to the Computerland tech, the llgs
motherboard won't fit in older cases. But lemme
tell you, my IIgs looks and feels like a real
Apple Iigs should look and feel, not that Chiclet-
keyed imposter! Apple even supplies a replace-
ment logo to go where the Ile emblem goes on
the case. Plus, in the great fan debate, my old
Kensington System Saver fits right on the side
like before and is sooooo quiet! So far I love it,
especially old games that run three times faster.
Joe Kuhl
Waipahu, Hawaii
My IIgs is an upgraded Ile with an Apple
Mousecard in slot 4. Using this setup | was
plagued with system crashes when using the
mouse to access pull-down menus. After pur-
chasing a keyboard and mouse that connect to
the desktop bus, I've had no further problems.
It appears there are some differences between
the original Mousecard and the ADB mouse.
Nigel Harrison
Singapore
Troubleshooting tour
After owning my Iigs for five months I ran the
disk called ‘Your Apple Tour of the Apple Iigs’.
When | reached the part where the car crosses
over the bridge, the Ilgs would crash, display a
bouncing apple, and display UNCLAIMED
SOUND INTERRUPT $08FF.
Suspecting the disk was bad | took it to my
Apple dealer and ran it on his ligs. It ran just
fine. So I took my computer back to the dealer
and after two weeks and $219.75 they
announced it was fixed. The replaced the moth-
erboard, saying I had a bad DOC chip.
Upset at the price, | trotted home, ran the
tour disk, and at the same faithful spot encoun-
tered the same error. So | hauled the entire sys-
tem down to the dealer and waited while they
checked it out again. After about 45 minutes
4.62 Open-Apple
they had it working just fine. It turns out the
tour disk won't work if the printer buffer in the
control panel is turned on.
The store reimbursed me for the price of the
motherboard but I'm still out the $60 labor
charge. I'm angry at the amount of time, effort,
and money | had to put out to fix a hardware
problem that didn't exist. What can we do as
end users to determine whether the source of a
problem is hardware, software, or system con-
figuration?
G. Shultz
Playa Del Rey, Calif.
I guess the dealer point-of-view is that when
you take a computer in for repair there's an
immediate minimum charge to cover diagno-
sis, whether there's anything wrong with the
machine or not. So it's important not to take
your computer in unless you're sure it's bro-
ken. It's hard to ever be absolutely sure (and
the newer you are at computers the harder it
is), but, in general, real hardware problems are
characterized by either a totally unusable
machine or crashes that are more random in
nature than the tour disk symptoms you expe-
rienced. That's a general rule, however, not
absolute.
On the other hand, here you were running
Apple-supplied software on Apple hardware
and you took your machine to an Apple-fran-
chised dealer. | think Apple should pay for the
diagnosis.
Repair restraint
1 blew some chips on my IIgs motherboard
by plugging an old 5.25 drive into a cable
adapter backwards. Instead of replacing the
chips for a few dollars, Apple's technical proce-
dure calls for a swap of the motherboard at a
price of $167.16 plus labor.
Next I needed a new power supply. | was not
told why, but | trust the technician. The price of
that swap was $149.25. | objected because
many power supplies are available in the $50-
60 price range. The technical supervisor at my
dealer said that Apple insists that franchised
dealers use only Apple parts. While shades of
gray exist, these regulations suggest restraint of
trade.
Herbert M. Olnick
Mineral Bluff, Ga.
| agree. Yet I can also appreciate Apple's
Position. We've complained about the quality
of many of Apple's dealerships for years. Apple
seems to have been particularly sensitive to
these complaints and has instituted a number
of programs to raise the quality of its dealers.
The ‘disposable motherboard’ program proba-
bly saves us all time and aggravation in the
Jong run, but it does mean that some individu-
als will have to pay more for service than they
would have otherwise.
It would probably take a legion of lawyers to
figure out whether it's within Apple's rights to
insist that a dealer sell only Apple parts. Mean-
while, if you decide to get a power supply for
your llgs elsewhere, be aware that it carries a
higher rating and has a different connector
than the Il-Plus/lle power supply.
RAM min & max
In the Control Panel of the Ilgs, under
RAMdisk, what is meant by the "minimum’ and
“maximum sizes?
Eugene Foss
Flora, Ill.
In your June issue (page 4.40) you recom-
mend setting the minimum size of the IIgs
RAMdisk at 800K. Can you explain why? | have
read so many different opinions as to what the
minimum should be | am very confused. Every-
one seems to have a different idea and no one
really explains the issue.
Patt Ricketts
Redondo Beach, Calif.
The original idea of the minimum and maxi-
mum sizes was to allow total flexibility in set-
ting up your system. The minimum reflects
how much memory will be actually set aside
for your RAMdisk, The maximum reflects how
much more memory you'll allow your RAMdisk
to use.
At boot-up the RAMdisk asks the Memory
Manager for the minimum amount of memory
you've specified. If, later on, you save enough
files on the RAMdisk that it needs more than
that, it will ask for more—up to the maximum
amount you have specified.
However, there's no guarantee the RAMdisk
will actually get more memory when it asks for
it—the Memory Manager may have already allo-
cated all the remaining memory to other pro-
grams. This can cause errors.
Consequently, we recommend that you
always set the minimum and the maximum to
the same number. The number we actually use
ourselves most of the time is OK, not 800K.
This turns all of the available memory-expan-
sion-slot memory over to the Memory Manager
for allocation. AppleWorks and ProDOS 16 pro-
grams will ask the Memory Manager for what
they need. Leaving the RAMdisk at OK also
means you'll have one less ‘disk’ connected to
the SmartPort. If you keep the number of
SmartPort devices at one or two, you'll prevent
the disk drive ‘shell game’ that assigns disks to
slot 2,
In June we recommended 800K because
the question was, ‘How do I copy a 3.5 disk to
/RAMS5’? Unless you set the RAMdisk to exactly
800K you'll get a DEVICE SIZE MISMATCH error
from most copy programs.
The best RAMdisk size for you really
depends on how you use your system. We
think you'll do yourself a favor in the long run,
though, if you set minimum and maximum to
the same number.
Reset unreliable
On my old Ile, open-apple/control/reset
always Caused a reboot. On my llgs, it hardly
ever does. Is this how it's supposed to be or is
there something wrong with my machine?
Sally Ringland
Clarion, Pa.
Reset does a lot more on the Ilgs than it did
on the Ile, This makes it take longer to get to
the part of the routine where it checks to see if
you're holding down the open-apple key. If you
are, it's supposed to reboot. If you're not, it's
just supposed to reset. The problem is you are
letting up on the open-apple key too fast.
We recommend the following technique for
the ‘three-finger salute." Press and hold down
on control and open-apple with your left hand.
With your right hand, press and release the
reset button. Continue pressing down on con-
trol and open-apple until the reboot sequence
begins. This same technique is required when
you use a Zip Chip-equipped machine.
Vol. 4, No. 8
IIgs is slot poor
While the IIgs appears to have seven slots
just like earlier Apple IIs, they just aren't there.
You need both a 3.5 and 5.25 drive to load
commercial software, that pre-empts slots 5 and
6. Slot 4 is tied up with the mouse and slot 3
with the 80-column display. With a modem in 2
and a printer in 1, you're left with just one
usable slot, 7. If you have both a hard disk and
a memory card, as | do, you're in trouble.
Im actually rather fortunate; I'm using an
internal modem that co-exists with the mouse
in slot 4 without having to select "Your Card’ in
the control panel. This lets me put either the
hard disk or the RAM card in slot 2. However,
even this isn't without its pitfalls, as some soft-
ware doesn't expect to see a RAM card there.
A good example is the Beagle Compiler. Its
APPLEMEM.SYSTEM routine will not see the RAM
card at all in slot 2, although it finds it easily in
slots 6 or 7. This would seem to dictate putting
the RAM card in slot 7 and putting the hard disk
interface in slot 2.
However, the hard disk I'm using is a Sider
C46; this device has an internal tape drive for
backup. No matter in which slot the hard disk
interface is located in, the software that access-
es the tape drive will not operate correctly if
anything that looks like a disk controller is in
slot 7.
It seems a shame that using the SmartPort
doesn't free up any slots.
Elliot Lifson
Yonkers, N.Y.
The real ProDOS 16 may solve some of
these problems, but meanwhile it's very diffi-
cult to find a free slot. AppleTalk, if you want
to use it, takes up both 2 and 7.
It points out how necessary it is for software
authors to make no assumptions at all about
what slots are suitable for a specific device. All
seven slots should be searched—even on the
lic, which has things in different places in its
various versions.
One other possibility you didn't mention is
to put either your hard disk or memory card in
slot 6 and switch back and forth between using
the 5.25 drive or your other device by entering
the Control Panel, reassigning the slot, and
rebooting. This is a viable alternative only if
you dont use your 5.25 drive much, however.
Color killer II
I've used your February tip for killing Ilgs RGB
color on standard resolution graphics many
times. | usually POKE 49246,0 from Applesoft,
set the Control Panel to display monochrome,
and boot the system with a PRén; this way the
color killer works even on most copy-protected
programs. Is there a way to POKE the
monochrome setting to avoid having to go into
the control panel? If a POKE will work, what
would happen if a program set up to do this
were run on a Ile? Are there any similar POKEs
for lle composite and RGB systems?
J.D. Holdeman
Cleveland, Ohio
Here's a little Applesoft program that will
force Ilgs double-high-res monochrome mode
(supported on RGB monitors only!) and boot
slot 6. The program doesn't actually change the
control panel setting—it overrides it. This
means that if you leave the Control Panel set
to color, then, the next time you enter it, dou-
Dle-high-res mode will be reset to color auto-
September 1988
matically.
The double-high-res_ ~monochrome/color
switch is in bit 5 of a ‘register’ or ‘softswitch’ at
49193 ($C029). When we change bit 5 we
want to be very careful not to change any of
the other bits in this register. This little pro-
gram works by reading the register first, chang-
ing bit 5 only, then writing the result back:
10 REM Ilgs RGB Color Killer for HR graphics
20 PRINT CHR$(21) : REM 40 col mode
30 POKE 49246,0 : REM double-res on
40 ADR=49193 : REN "NENVIDEO" register
50 NV=PEEK (ADR) : D=NV : REM save value in NV
60 FOR N=7 TO 5 STEP -1 :REM check out bi: 5
65 : BN-2*N ; IF D>BN-1 THEN D=D-BN : B(N)=1
10 NEXT
80 IF B(5)=0 THEN POKE ADR,NV+32 : REM chg to mono
90 PRINT CHRS(4) ;"PRE6" : PRINT
The softswitch at 49195 clicks the cassette
output on the Il-Plus and Ile and is unused on
the llc, so this routine shouldn't cause any
trouble on those machines.
The program doesn't work on an RGB-
equipped Ile. Turning on double-high-res
monochrome on an RGB-lle requires a
sequence of POKEs you can read about in our
May 1985 issue, page 1.36. When you mix this
mode with 40-column text, you see half of a
double-resolution graphic, just like on the ligs,
but it's the wrong half. You see whatever
garbage is in auxiliary memory, not the stan-
dard resolution graphic in main memory.
The program never works with composite
monitors, whether you're using a Ile or ligs.
Most Iles sold outside the U.S., and all Laser
128s, include a ‘color killer’ switch you can
use to get rid of color smears on composite
monitors, however.
Rana results
| see you have at least one other subscriber
with Rana drives (‘Rana schematics’, June
1988, page 4.40). There has to be a good num-
ber of us who have been left high and dry with
these drives. | have two Elite Ils and one Elite 1.
Does anyone have any information on how to
get full use of these drives, especially with
AppleWorks? Mine are presently configured for
143K. | would like to make use of the larger
disk capacity of these drives.
Don Blais
Calgary, Alb.
We've never had any Rana drives around
here, but we'd be happy to try to link you Rana
owners up with each other if you'd all send us
a little note that says something like ‘I own a
Rana drive, who else does?" We'll wait until
November |, 1988 and then send you all a
sheet of paper with everyone's name on it.
The difference between your Elite | and a
standard Apple drive is that it can fit 40
‘tracks’ on a 5.25 floppy instead of the usual
35. We discussed how to get ProDOS 1.1.1 to
use this extra capacity in April 1985, pages
1.51-1,52. There was another letter correcting
the original in July 1985, page 1.55.
As | said in my response to the April letter,
the ‘correct’ way to go about getting ProDOS to
work with your drives is to have ProDOS-com-
patible ROMs on the disk controller card. Since
it doesn't look like Rana will be providing those
anytime soon, I'm printing the following letter,
which is an updated version of the patches.
To keep the explanation short, I'm leaving it
in assembly language terms—if it looks impos-
sibly technical to you, find someone who
knows a little assembly language and they can
make the patches for you.
ProDOS and big floppy drives
The only reason ProDOS 8 and 16 won't read
and write to high-capacity 5.25-floppy drives is
that the ProDOS floppy driver checks the block
number it's supposed to read or write before
doing anything else. If the block number is over
280, the number of blocks on a standard 35-
track floppy disk, it refuses to proceed.
Here's the code that does the check. If you
BLOAD ProDOS 8 at $2000, you'll find it in the
vicinity of $5800, but it moves around from ver-
sion to version:
AS 46 LDA $46
AG 47 Lx $47
BE 56 D3 STX $356
FO 09 BEQ —
cA DEX
DO 04 BNE —
C9 18 CMP #518
90 02 BCC —
38 SEC
60 RIS
18 cle
60 RTS
00 BRK
00 BRK
To use a 40-track drive, simply change the
$18 in the CMP instruction to $40. This allows
validation of 320-block devices. The changes
for 80-track or 160-track disks are more exten-
sive but not more difficult. The checking routine
will grow a few bytes longer, but this we can
neglect, because the bytes after the original rou-
tine are only unused BRKs.
80-track drives have 640 blocks. Insert an
extra DEX after the one already there and move
the rest of the routine one byte to make it fit.
Change the CMP #$18 to CMP #$80. Presto, Pro-
DOS allows to write and read 640 blocks.
160-track drives have 1280 blocks. We have
to insert four extra DEX commands after the
one already there (five total). Move the rest of
the routine four bytes to make room. Change
the CMP #$18 to CMP #$00.
The exact same checking routine is embed-
ded in ProDOS 16. However, you can't load P16
into memory because it's too big. You can load
sections of it with a command like BLOAD
P16,T$F9,A$2000,B$5000,L$1000 however. In
the version | have the routine starts at BS5CC5.
Udo Huth
Wittmar, West Germany
In addition to changing the ProDOS floppy
driver, you also have to figure out a way to for-
mat ProDOS disks for your drive. Can anyone
help us out with that?
Eamon Users Group
Eamon is a public domain software package
that contains all the tools needed for writing
text adventure games. Currently there are over
150 Eamon adventures in the public domain.
Of course, many of these adventures are only
mediocre, but the best are quite good and a
treat to play.
But those who have tried it often agree that
actually writing your own Eamon adventure is
the most fun that they have ever had with their
Apples.
Open-Apple 4.63
A lot of people tried Eamon several years ago
and quit because the system wasn't that good.
John Nelson continued to develop and debug
the package, and the current version is vastly
more powerful than the early ones, with more
commands and capabilities. This is reflected in
the adventures themselves, as the vast majority
of the best ones are in the 100s. Anyone who
has never played such Eamon classics as #129,
Return to Moria or #145 Buccaneer! have no
conception of the current state of Eamon gam-
ing.
There is an Eamon User's Group that puts out
a quarterly newsletter for Eamon enthusiasts.
Nelson used to run it, but he bought himself an
IBM and is lost to the Apple world now. Howev-
er, before leaving, John transferred the club to
my own enthusiastic hands.
If anyone would like more information on
Eamon or on our user's group, they can write to
me. Eamon programs run on older Apple
Ils—there's not that much new stuff out there
for a Il-Plus owner anymore. Even Infocom
requires 128K now.
Tom Zuchowski
7625 Hawkhaven Dr.
Clemmons, NC 27012
SuperCalc and the llgs
Is there a patch available for SuperCalc 5A
that allows it to print through the IIgs serial
port?
K.J. Dawson
Widnes, England
Dennis found the information you seek in a
library file uploaded to GEnie by Harry Sugar
by searching with the keyword ‘SuperCalc’. The
Procedure is too long to print here; he sent you
a printout and will also send it to anyone else
who needs it. Just ask.
Comp.sys.apple
I'd like to encourage any of your readers who.
have access to mainframe networks (through a
university, military installation, or large corpora-
tion) to try to get in contact with a Usenet news-
group called ‘comp.sys.apple*.
Like GEnie, the Usenet network news allows
discussion of current topics and distribution of
public domain, freeware, and shareware pro-
grams. While there are a few thousand sites that
are Usenet members, there are only about 200
people who subscribe to comp.sys.apple.
Even if a site doesn't carry Usenet, it's still
possible for user to subscribe to a mailing list
(info-apple’) that will send all of the articles to
their personal mailbox.
If anyone is uncertain about how to access
these services, they can talk to their system
administrator or send mail to me (fadden@
zen.berkeley.edu) after the fall semester begins.
‘Andy McFadden
Sunnyvale, Calif.
International modems
| am stationed in London with the U.S. Navy
and would like to get a modem that will work
both here and back in the U.S. with minimal
swapping of cords and things. Any suggestions
as to which modem would be best?
Fred M. Greatorex
London, UK
4.64 Open-Apple
Here's what we know so far: what you need
is a modem that supports both the U.S, trans-
mission standards (Bell 103, 212, etc.) and
also the European transmission standards
(CCITT V.22, etc.). There also may be a prob-
lem with voltages when you directly connect
the phone line to your modem, but this part is
still fuzzy to us.
We hesitate to recommend a specific
modem, but we know that Epic Technology
(5680 Stewart Ave, Fremont, CA 94538, 415-
685-0932) supports CCITT on their modems,
and may be able to assist you. Meanwhile, we'll
see what our subscriber base knows.
RGB fiddles with disk
| recently took the plunge and upgraded from
a IIc to a ligs. The llc had a UniDisk 3.5 and a
lic external 5.25, which | hoped could be
plugged right in. The local Apple store said the
3.5 wouldn't work but the 5.25 would. After
looking through past Open-Apples, | decided
that it should work despite what the dealer said,
so | plugged them in.
The UniDisk 3.5 worked fine, but the external
5.25 didn't. After much fiddling, | tracked the
Problem down to interference from the RGB
monitor! My desk has a wooden stand for the
drives just below the shelf on which the moni-
tor sits. The 3/4 inch of oak the monitor sits on
isn't enough to block interference from the
monitor, but a piece of aluminum foil under the
monitor does wonders.
Bob Durst
Corvallis, Ore.
Locked to slot 6
| was having a problem that | thought was
Open-Apple
iy
aon © Copyright 1988 by
Tom Weishaar
wth help from
Tom Vanderpool Sally Dwyer
Dennis Doms Steve Kelly
Most nghts reseed. All programs publshed in Open Apple are puble
oman and may be coped ard dstrbuled wihout charge, Ape usergroups
ad sqniicant ters may cian permission orginal om time ne
by specie wien request
‘Oper-Apple has been publshed marthiy since January 1985. Word wide
snces ( US. doles, arma devey cds ain ator charg): $28 fr
year $54 fr 2 years $78 for 3 yeas. Al back issues are cue aalabe for
‘82 each; bound. indexed excitons of our frst three volumes are $14.95 each, Vol
tunes end withthe January sue an index forthe por volume i coed with
te Febuary ese
Please serdallcorespondece to:
Open-Apple
P.O. Box 11250
Overland Park, Kansas 66207 U.S.A.
Open-Apple 1s available on disk for speech synthesizer users trom
Speech Enterprises, PO. Box 7986, Houston, Texas 77270.
‘Open-Apple is sold in an unprotected format for your convenience. You
‘are encouraged to make back-up archwval copes or easy to-read enlarged
copies for your own use without charge. You may also copy Open-Apple for
‘tributon to others. The distribution fee is 15 cents per page per copy ds
tnbuted
WARRANTY AND LIMITATION OF LIABILITY. | warrant that most ofthe
information in Open-Apple is useful and correct. athough drwvel and mis
lakes are included from me to time, usualy unintentonally, Unsatistied
subserbers may cancel their subsenption at any time and receive a full
Telund of ther last subscrption payment. The untiled porbon of any pad
subscription will be refunded even lo satisied subscribers upon request
MY LIABILITY FOR ERRORS AND OMISSIONS IS LIMITED TO THS.
PUBLICATIONS PURCHASE PRICE. In no case shall | or my contrbutos
be liable for any imental or consequential damages. nor for ANY dam
ages m excess ofthe fees paid by a subscriber.
ISSN 0885-4017
Printed in the U.S.A.
GEnie mal: OPEN-APPLE
913-469-6502
related to my Central Point Software 5.25 drive
and Universal Disk Controller Card. This combi-
nation seemed to have trouble with certain
pieces of software that asked for a disk to be
withdrawn from the drive and flipped over or
replaced with another disk. The software would-
n't recognize the second side of the disk.
| eventually traced the problem to the slot
the controller card was in. | had the controller
in slot 5, but the software wouldn't work unless
the controller was in slot 6, even with a stock
Apple disk controller card.
Bernard W. Bopp
Toledo, Ohio
IIgs Applesoft animation
On older Apple Il machines | have pro-
grammed shape tables using Applesoft. Now
with my IIgs | hope to take advantage of the
enhanced features. How can | achieve super-
high-res animation using the Apple Ilgs tools? |
have seen many informative books on the
Apple Ilgs but none seem to give in-depth infor-
mation about animation. It would be a great
help if you could recommend a book on this
subject.
Jimmy Asta
Roselle, Ill.
The Great llgs Graphics Book has yet to
be written. Meanwhile, you might want to take
a look at Iconix (So What Software, 10221
Slater Ave. #103, Fountain Valley, CA 92708).
Iconix consists of a set of assembly language
routines that interface good old Applesoft with
the IIgs super-high-res screen. It allows you to
put both text and graphics on the screen. Its
‘shape tables’ are called ‘icons’ and can be cre-
ated with any SHR drawing program. By moving
and changing these icons you can create ani-
mation fairly easily.
The same company also has a program
called Sonix that interfaces Applesoft with the
sound system inside the ligs.
Basic.system patch bug
I recently decided it was time to perform sev-
eral patches to Basic.system mentioned in vari-
ous issues of Open-Apple. Way back on page
1,56 (July 1985) a patch submitted by Sandy
Mossberg appears to have a typo. In the line
that begins "9E30" the ‘10° should be ‘01’.
James W. Patton
Littleton, Colo.
Record length
At what memory location does ProDOS keep
the record length of the last text file opened?
Edward Johnson
N Little Rock, Ark.
The record length of a file is stored in the
file's directory entry. One way to get the infor-
mation is to OPEN the directory that the file is
in and READ it.
Another way is to use the ProDOS Machine
Language Interface GET_INFO call. Addison-
Wesley's ProDOS 8 Technical Reference
explains how to do this.
You can also dig the information out of
Basic.system’s global page if you do it immedi-
ately after OPENing the file. For example:
10 REM Get a file's Record Length
20 PRINT CHRS (4) ;"OPEN TESTPILE"
30 RL = (PEEK(48826)*256) + PEEK (48825)
40 PRINT CHR$(4) ; "CLOSE"
50 PRINT "Record Length = ";RL
Vol. 4, No. 8
New MLI command
In ProDOS 8, version 1.4, | have found a new
Machine Language Interface command that |
have not seen documented anywhere. This call
will allow you to access your own custom code,
nestled in the main RAM $D0 bank 2 in address-
es $D400 to $DFFF, with only a normal ProDOS
MLI call. This 12-page block of RAM is located
immediately following the ProDOS enhanced
QUIT code,
Make your call to the MLI in the normal way
using command number $42. The parameter
list can contain any number of bytes but the list
length parameter must be $01 for the call to be
accepted without error. Your routine can find
the parameter list by means of a pointer Pro-
DOS sets up at $40-$41. You can do almost
anything in your routine except access $D000-
$FFFF ROM, which is turned off when ProDOS is
active. To exit, clear the carry and RTS if no
error occurred, or put your error code in the
accumulator, set the carry, and RTS.
Douglas E. Mitton
Brockville, Ont.
Apple Developer Technical Support tells us
that what you've actually uncovered is a new
MLI command for AppleTalk, Using it as you've
suggested is feasible only if you're willing to
forgo AppleTalk compatibility forever.
A lesson about fonts
The fonts that come with Publish It!, the Pro-
DOS 16 system disk, and Beagle Bros’ Super-
Fonts are all interchangeable—with one small
hitch. ProDOS 16 and SuperFonts use $C8
(FON) for the file type of font files, while Pub-
lish It! uses $F7. SuperFonts can use Publish
It!'s fonts as is, but Publish It! requires you to
change the file type to the $F7 it expects before
it will recognize the file as a font.
The folks behind Publish It! (Timeworks)
aren't happy with the ‘quality and aspect ratio”
of converted fonts, so they don't tell anyone
how easy it is to use other fonts with their soft-
ware. But most fonts do quite well.
Incidentally, A.P.P.L.E. Co-op offers about 300
public domain ProDOS 16 fonts on four 3.5
disks for $3 per disk.
William H. Olson
Riverside, Calif.
To add additional fonts to Publish It!, you
have to use the ‘Install Font’ and 'De-install
Font" options, which appear under the apple
menu. File types can be changed with a disk
zap utility or with a public domain program
Olson has written.
ProDOS 16 fonts are essentially Macintosh
fonts with an additional header and a few other
minor changes. Converting fonts from one sys-
tem to the other looks easy, but we don't know
of any programs available for distribution that
will do it.
A complete definition of ProDOS 16 fonts is
in Addison-Wesley's Apple ligs Toolbox Ref-
erence, Volume 2, pages 16-41 through 16-
54. If you have this book, turn to the figure on
page 16-42 and note at the top of the figure
that ProDOS 16 font files actually start with a
one-byte string length followed by a string of
characters that spells the font's name. The rest
of the file duplicates the table on page 16-42.
The table reflects how the font appears in
memory—there the name-string doesn't
appear.